Lost and Found – Seeking the Priceless
Lost and Found – Seeking the Priceless.
“Many dishonest tax collectors and other notorious sinners often gathered around to listen as Jesus taught the people. This raised concerns with the Jewish religious leaders and experts of the law. Indignant, they grumbled and complained, saying, ‘Look at how this man associates with all these notorious sinners, eats with them, and welcomes them all to come to him!” (Luke 15:1-2).
Unclean? The Pharisees wouldn’t let up. They continued harping on Jesus because He welcomed sinners to listen to Him teach. He befriended them, and even ate with them! This particular time, they noticed that tax collectors and other sinners are flocking around Jesus to listen to Him teach and tell stories. And Jesus does nothing to discourage them. The Pharisees are indignant, and they muttered once again that Jesus shouldn’t be doing this sort of thing if He was a self-respecting rabbi. They complained to Jesus that He is associating with the unclean riffraff. Isn’t He worried about defiling Himself, they wonder?
Table Fellowship. What’s wrong with eating with sinners, anyway? In the eyes of pious Jews, table fellowship was a serious business. Eating with someone was a special sign of acceptance. It was evident that Jesus didn’t merely eat with sinners. It was clear that He actually hosted sinners, that these outcasts were invited by Jesus to His table. NT scholar Jeremias noted that “to invite someone to a meal was an honor, an offer of peace, trust, forgiveness, and brotherhood.” Merely rubbing shoulders with the unclean sinner was bad enough, but to go out of your way to invite them, to choose to be with them, was scandalous. Kenneth Bailey noted that a respected homeowner may offer a meal to the needy as a sign of generosity, but that man certainly wouldn’t lower himself and actually eat with those people. But Jesus did just that. The issue of impurity was so central that a rabbinic instruction of that time included, “The wise say, ‘Let not a man associate with sinners even to bring them to the Torah!” The Pharisees were obsessed with their purity laws. They were so afraid of being made unclean that they wouldn’t even associate with sinners in order to bring them to the Scriptures! Table fellowship with sinners was thus absolutely forbidden for pious Jews, and the religious leaders were dumfounded that Jesus would take this part of their law so lightly.
Parables about the Lost. How did Jesus defend Himself from these pious complaints? He didn’t respond to their criticism with a three-point sermon about the art of evangelism. Instead, Jesus tells them three stories, three parables about the lost… The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. These “lost” stories narrow in focus from one out of 100 (sheep), to one out of 10 (coins), to one out of two (sons). These parables were Jesus’ defense for His being the friend of sinners, and He wants to make sure the Pharisees don’t miss the point. The final lost item in the three stories, the elder son, is the point of this group of stories. Jesus wants them to see that the elder son is a picture of the Pharisees themselves, who were ultimately left out of the fellowship because of their self-righteousness.
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:8-10).
The Wedding Necklace. Jesus loved to tell stories in which women played an important role. It highlighted the importance of their presence in the culture, and it revealed that women had a legitimate place to play in God’s narrative in the world. An important background fact to this story is that women in a Palestinian village during that time were often given ten silver coins as a wedding gift, their dowry. Each coin, a drachma, was worth a day’s wage. The coins were often worn in a necklace, representing the fact that she was married. So the coin necklace was similar to a wedding ring nowadays. These coins were considered very valuable for three reasons: for monetary value, since cash was a rare commodity to villagers; for sentimental value, because the coins represent her marriage; and for beauty, since any missing coins would destroy the attractive appearance of the necklace. So, this lost coin in the story was no doubt a distressing event for the woman. Any woman in this predicament would certainly look high and low for that coin. She would light a lantern, bring out the broom, and search diligently, if not frantically, until the coin was found. She would naturally rejoice when she found the coin, and invite all her friends and neighbors to join in the celebration.
A Story of God as a Woman. The woman in this parable is a metaphor for God. It would have been controversial to picture God as a woman, especially around the religious leaders. Upon hearing this little story, the Pharisees would have gone on a tirade. God represented by a woman? Outrageous! Evidently the scholars of Torah forgot about Isaiah 49:13-16. The great prophet Isaiah compared the Lord to a mother who would never forget her nursing child. The Lord comforted the people and had compassion on them like a nursing mother who would never desert her child. Isaiah is saying that God loves Israel like a mother loves the child she has borne. Jesus’ story would have offended the sensibilities of these scholars, even though there is clear Scriptural precedence for the comparison. At a later time, Jesus would lament over Jerusalem and compare Himself to a mother hen who wants desperately to gather her chicks around her.
God Claims Ownership of the Lost. Just as the woman would never give up searching for that lost coin, God will refuse to give up His search for the lost soul, the person who for whatever reason is lost from the sheepfold of faith. Just as the woman never lost ownership of the coin even when lost, God will continue to claim ownership of the lost soul, even in the predicament of being estranged from Him.
The Lost as Image-Bearers. Just as each coin bears an imprint, an image, so each person, each sinner bears the imprint of God’s image. God will never give up his search for anyone who is made in God’s likeness but has wandered away. Every one of the lost sinners would be of incalculable value, and would be beyond priceless in God’s eyes.
Joy. Once again, as in the story of the lost sheep, the climax of the story involves joy. When God finds the lost sinner, He rejoices in heaven, and He shares that joy with all the angels that surround Him. Lost and found. Unfettered and abundant joy. Jesus wishes that the Pharisees could share in that unbounded joy.